Sustainable Together

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Inspiration

Miners get a bad rap. Despite a growing trend of significant investments into climate-focused initiatives, mining and energy companies maintain a poor reputation in the eyes of the general public.

Although the track record of the industry is not spotless, we believe that the world-class technology to reduce emissions and environmental footprints being deployed by the industry's top companies will result in positive, tangible change. The public deserves to know about this, and we want to help spread the word!

What it does

Sustainable Together is a web platform association to showcase climate-friendly projects in operation or being actively pursued by the resource extraction industry. Companies can sign up to join the association, where they can exhibit their unique sustainability-based assets and initiatives.

Members of the general public can search and sort through the listings of mining and energy companies to learn about the climate-friendly technology that is going on behind the scenes. Individual and institutional site users alike can contact the Sustainable Together association to either join or provide their own ideas for sustainability-based projects.

How we built it

We started our development process with a brainstorming session to identify a shortlist of various topics to tackle. As a group, we concluded that public education was a critical topic for companies like Teck Resources, and forged ahead with the product planning.

After we designed a mock-up design, we utilized HTML and CSS to build the website and execute the desired functionality - including company-specific showcases, a signup page, and a news centre.

Challenges

We faced time constraints arising from two dimensions. First, 11 hours of hacking flies by and never feels like it's enough time. Second, our 4-person team was located in multiple time zones, which makes coordinating a sprint project much more difficult. We developed a good team rhythm and divided the work to ensure everyone was able to accomplish something new but also stay hydrated, rested, and nourished.

We also ran into a technical challenge of trying to overlay two HTML div sections. After numerous meetings with mentors and multiple attempts, we had to settle on a workaround compromise. What is a hackathon without a trade-off or two!

Accomplishments

Our team consisted of members with varying skill levels. This was the first hackathon for two of our members, and they successfully built HTML web pages linked to CSS style guides, and became more proficient with the collaborative version control process. Our more experienced members tackled the more advanced building, and constructed polished and pretty visuals and site interactions!

Learnings

We picked up skills in general web development, and also learned about some of the cool sustainability projects being worked on by some of Canada's leading resource companies. We also garnered further appreciation for the vast world of technology whose surface we are just scratching.